


The Rubicon

by historia_vitae_magistras



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Brotherly Love, Gen, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, This is a story where the main characters are the bad guys, Warning: War, Warning: nazis, World War Two, You Have Been Warned, but these stories about how normal loving men become evil need to be told, evil is the mundane only slightly twisted, if he ever reaches it, probs will rip your heart out through your asshole, she actively punches nazis, the author is not a fucking nazi, this is a not fun fic, warfic, warning: I take hetalia way too fucking seriously, warning: genocide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 07:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12127182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historia_vitae_magistras/pseuds/historia_vitae_magistras
Summary: The brothers Beilschmidt have crossed every line of morality so many times they don't know where they were, to begin with. They have crossed rivers, they have crossed horizons. And now he has to cross one more. It's 1945 and the end of the world. There are bullets and there are goodbyes.But there won't be forgiveness.One shot. Complete.





	The Rubicon

 

_On the other shore,_

_there’s the end of the war_

 

* * *

 

 

The Elbe rushes, water churning and grey. It’s going to be cold when he shoves his brother in. But the artillery isn’t so close yet that he must just yet. He takes off his coat, stripped of any markings, and folds it around his brother’s shoulders. It’s too goddamn cold to send his last brother down into that water without a coat and Ludwig has given up his uniform. His helmet is gone somewhere, Gilbert doesn’t care where. He can see his boy's eyes for the first time months and they’re clear, blessedly, mercifully clear. Like that gun under the chin of Hitler has blasted Ludwig’s twelve-years-addled brains clear of the Nazis. There’s only remorse in his craggy, hungry looking face. He’s lost so much weight, they both have. Gilbert doesn’t say anything, just drops his pack to the floor. There’s three days of food left and two packs of cigarettes in a tin to keep them dry, a blanket and a few rounds of silver the size of griddle cakes. In short, there isn't shit he has left to give. But he gives it anyway, looping the canvas straps around his brother’s narrow shoulders.

He’s lost so much weight, Gilbert’s blue sweater fits him. He’s had that thing since the fall of the empire, and it shows in the pilling around the underarms, but it’s what he has to give that isn't black and likely to get his boy shot. SS or Tanker didn’t matter. Black uniforms will be shot through the back of the head. He taps a bewildered looking Ludwig’s chin, tries to smile. He fails, mouth drooping. No matter. He steps forward, pushes Ludwig back.  

“You’ve got to go,” 

“I want to stay,” he says. “I’ve got to— There’s going to be punishment for this,”

“You’re going,” Gilbert says. He thinks of the broken East Prussian women discarded on the sides of the roads, thinks of all his young dead men in grey. Thinks of all the wild-eyed children huddled in corners, spared by the bullets for their youth but left to starve and die regardless. Thinks of Erzsé in Budapest. He doesn’t want to know what they will do to her, what he’s brought upon her by looping her in with his stupid, endless support of his only surviving brother. He thinks of how they’re going to hang him the cruel way, strangling him rather than breaking his neck. They won’t spare the bullets for him, but they might spare his brother the view of Gilbert’s death if only he can force him to Alfred.  

“No—” Ludwig says, shaking his head. There will be a trial, and there will be death. But then there’s got to be life. Ludwig’s got to live or they will both die forgotten and in fire. 

“Yes, you’re going,” Gilbert says and smooth’s Ludwig’s hair back. He’s been without pomade for days since they abandoned Berlin and he looks so young. Looks like the boy Gilbert raised for the first time in years. He hasn’t had a glimpse since Stalingrad and hasn’t had a true look since 1933. 

“We'll find each other again," Gilbert says. Ludwig can't meet his eyes. “Lutz— Ludwig— Look at me. Goddamn it, kid. This might be the last chance. Look at me.” 

Gilbert cups his jaw. The bullets in his pockets clack. His wrists are bleeding from the shrapnel at Koenigsburg, weeks before. He hasn’t had time to rest and let the scabbing set in and toughen properly. Ludwig looks to him; he's the reason they're here after all.

He should be panicked, they’re so close to the brink, the German lines falling back everywhere, Russian artillery tearing them apart. But he’s not. He doesn’t feel like a man cornered and fated to hang; there’s only worry. The Allies are going to make them pay for this. They're going to pry them apart and melt them down, lock stock and barrel until the war machine is unrecognisable. But maybe, just fucking maybe, something of Ludwig will survive it. 

“There you are,” Gilbert says. 

“Don’t go.” It’s all Ludwig can say. And goddamn it if Gilbert doesn't want to say the same thing. Wants to beg his boy to stay, wants to stay bound to his side until the end, but this has to be done. Everything good in him wants him to keep his brother tethered at his side to ride this out. 

“Sorry, West. I have to.” Gilbert raises his hand and the shrapnel cut deeper into the narrows of his joints. He pushes back Lutz’s bangs. He’s been without pomade since Christmas, but without a bath since Budapest, filth keeps his brother’s hair slicked back now. 

“Please— Brother, please. You can’t— You can’t— I can’t! God! I can’t do this without you.”

“You’re going to have to. You’ll be alright. I promise. I said I’d keep you safe, didn’t I? I always keep you safe and this is what we have to do right now. Alright?”

“Okay,” Lutz says and the fight goes out of him. His eyes are still two bright flames in the pale tallow candle wax of his face. Might be madness, might be the infection raging in his thigh. He doesn’t know. Neither of them can know. But Gilbert has bet their lives, or at least what’s left of his, on it not being the madness. 

His hand drops.

“You’re going to have to do it right this time, hear me? You will do everything exactly as Alfred says. You will learn how to do it right. I taught you everything I’ve got in me— and it didn’t work. So do it over this time. Make something better. Earn it. Earn what they’re giving you.” 

“Promise me you’ll come back. Even if they— just let me know you’re alright?” 

“I’ll punt kick St. Paul in the jewels and lead the angels right to hell. You bet your ass I’ll let you know, kiddo.” 

“And if you don’t—” 

“If I don’t die, we’ll find each other again.” His voice is fervent now. "I promise. If we have to put up with a few years of purgatory, places without a home—" He thinks about Lutz, and the Potsdam estate that's now gone, the house in Charlottenburg crumbling and rotten. He thinks of Erzsé with her face dark with rage and her back open like she’s been flogged with shrapnel. Thinks of his what’s left of his kingdom in the east, all his dead men and shattered women. Thinks of Fritz, of the utter destruction of everything they’d ever wanted during his greatest king’s life. Thinks of the boy in front of him, and the end. 

He thinks of the end a lot: hopes its swift, hope it's clean, hopes his brother isn’t there to watch. His boy, his brother, his fucking future. 

"—then that is our punishment. We've earned it. Ludwig, we have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But you're the one thing— the one fucking thing I’ve made that might just tip balance,”

“Gilbert—” Ludwig looks too young, oh too fucking young. 

“Do you understand me? This is the last chance I can give you—this is the last fucking chance. You have to tip the balance. You have to go over there and rebuild what’s left into something better. Please, Deutschland—” 

He never calls Lutz by his formal name. But it works. The column of his boy’s throat works furiously and his eyes are wet. 

“I can’t—” Ludwig’s voice wavers like a child’s before it’s about to cry. 

“You don’t have a choice,” He’s pleased when his voice is steady. 

“What I’ve done… It isn’t forgivable,”

“No,” Gilbert said. Smokestacks, slaughter and sickly yellow stars flash across his eyes. “It isn’t,”  Burning churches and children flash across his eyes. Battered helmets, boarded homes and broken history flash across his eyes. Everything he has ever done and will ever rest in his brother’s hands now. This is all he can do. 

“Then how am I—” 

“I don’t know. You live with, make it right as best you can. Look forward. Look forward and be fucking better or we’re both dead and this will be for nothing. Do better, understand me? This is it, this is the last fucking time,” 

His boy nods. “Yes.” He’ll earn it. He’ll earn it. He’ll do as he’s told. God, Lutz always does as he’s told.

“Good, now listen to me. When you go, you tell Francis and you tell Arthur and all of them that this was me, that all of it in the East was me. Understand? Alfred might not believe you, but Francis will. You tell them I shot you and shipped you west for and that this was all me. Tell ‘em I clicked my heels and fucking built the camps if you have to. I don’t care but you tell them what the fuck I did out east. That’s true. Tell the truth when you can, alright? You can’t lie for shit, they’ll see right through you if you aren’t as honest as possible,”

“Gilbert—” 

“You don’t have a fucking choice,” he says and suddenly he’s angry. “You fucking owe me so you better do as I fucking say or we’re both fucked, understand me?” 

“Yes,”

“Peace, Ludwig, peace for Deutschland or I swear to god—” 

“Peace,” He says, suddenly looking very pale. “You— you want peace?” 

“We need peace.” 

“I don’t deserve peace,” 

“Maybe not, but you'll earn that. You’ll earn that so when I stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest of what we’ve done, understand me?." 

Gilbert leaned, and the blood from his wrists dripped on Germany’s feet, watering something precious. 

“God, you’ve given me a rare child, and I raised him well.”

“You— I—” 

“Don’t make it a lie, brother,” 

He embraces him, shoves his taller, younger brother down so the corn-silk hair is under his chin, snakes arms around him. Holds him like he did when the boy was young and he was still in blue. Everything anyone ever gave Prussia, ever gave Gilbert, he poured tenfold into the boy he holds now—and they had struck horror into the heart of the world with it. But enough is enough. It has to end, and he has to go. 

He shoves Lutz in. 

He collapses with a splash, water clear to his thighs. It should be easy enough to cross but between the ruined thigh and the bleeding head, Ludwig struggles. He teeters upright, like when he was a clumsy child in new boots that fit perfectly but were too heavy for a child with their iron heels. He can’t do it. He can’t fucking do it. He splashes into the water, lifts his water laden brother up and holds him.  

“Brother— Brother please,” He doesn’t turn the way he’s supposed to, tries to struggle for the shore. It’s a strange thing, what he’s doing. Coming back. All he’s ever done in his 74 years of living, since the day Gilbert put the nation on his shoulders, is push forward. First patchwork colonies, then new engines, new electricity. Planes, trains and automobiles, he’s wanted anything but what he already had and now, now for the once in the little shit’s life, he’s scrambling back to Gilbert. He clambers up the bank into his arms.

Gilbert holds him again. “I’m sorry—” 

Ludwig sobs, bodily this time, and it racks through him like a tidal change. “ Please, please don’t go. Please don’t leave. Please don’t leave me—”

“You have to, you have to fucking go.” 

“Please, I can’t lose you. I can’t. I just— please Gilbert, I can’t.” He’s a child, scared of punishment but not sure what he did wrong. He’s not sure, not exactly, where he drew the line. And that, that’s what is so goddamn wrong about this war. Everyone knows those lines of nation and empire and they have crossed them all so many times, Ludwig isn’t sure where they are anymore. 

“I’m sorry— I’m so sorry, please, please don’t leave me,” 

Gilbert hates him, for a moment, for a white-hot moment he hates him like he hates the last twelve years. Hates him for that shattered moment and it's enough. He shoves his brother away, shoulders his rifle. His brother, his boy, his whole fucking world is reduced to a pinprick through his greying tunnel vision.  

“Go,” he says, and it’s flat and horrible, hardly his own voice. If his rifle weren’t pressed to his shoulder, he’d forget he was himself. He’s done that a lot, these past few years. Blood tends to smear, after all. He fires a shot just to the left of Ludwig’s head. 

“I said,” he reset the bolt, lifted his eyes from the sights one more time, “GO!” 

“Brother please—” 

“If you call me that one more time I will shoot you right through. You know I won’t fucking miss,”  

“Please—” And this time, it’s so soft and so desperate, Gilbert nearly gives. His hand relaxes. And then Koenigsburg rages. Fire in his chest, the 480 tonnes of bombs Arthur had burned his heart out with smearing and greying his vision. Fire where blood had once been, nerve endings cut and horrifically hot. He’s used to it by now, a little at least because he doesn’t faint anymore, only wavered, tensed to keep his balance. His trigger finger tensed, curled— and there’s a scream. 

His vision goes black again, he wonders how many women are even alive in Koenigsburg, wonders if his heart won't stop beating with them. He thinks of them nailed to doors and burning and starving and dead and god, god he hates Ludwig for it. He hates him, he does, but he’s the only thing he’s got left in this world and like hell— like hell, if this war will take him with everything else.  

They’re both in the water then, Ludwig bleeding freely from his shoulder, Gilbert flat on his ass with only his nose above and fuck if it isn’t cold. He can’t move— doesn’t know if he wants to move. He can’t breathe, he doesn’t care. 

He watches Ludwig scramble up the other side and disappears through the brush and it’s enough. 

It has to be enough. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Background: The war was started by the Third Reich, with a tremendous amount of territory gained. By the end of it, nothing remained of those conquests. All the suffering on all sides was for nothing, begun by aggression and ending in fire. The four-year span of the far right Germany with the far left Soviet Union resulted in death and destruction unprecedented in human history. 
> 
> The line between the Western Front and the Eastern was a German river that bisects Europe as the dividing line between what would become the Allied and Soviet occupation zones. Berlin had fallen at the end of April to the Soviets, and the Allies ceased advancing east as the agreement between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union came into play. Everyone who could walk fled west. Those who didn't... well that's a tale for another story. 
> 
> Gilbert has fought, bled and sacrificed for Ludwig since the day he was pulled out of the fire on that battlefield at Austerlitz. 1945 is no different. As stated in the tags, the political views of the characters are not the views of the author. I'm a gay french-canuck, Nazism would be for me the way it is for most, in direct opposition to any and all self preservation instincts humanity retains. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr here: https://historia-vitae-magistras.tumblr.com/
> 
> I post history and Hetalia and aesthetics.
> 
> Kudos, comments and critiques are life. Thank you for reading!


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